Heir of the Dog
by Excalibards
Summary: A Deliverance-verse side story. When Pete Wisdom and Lockheed get into one fight too many at the local pub, the rest of the team decide it's time to find out the real reason behind his grudge. Originally entered in the 2008 Livewire World writing contest.


**Heir of the Dog**

_Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction using characters, locations and concepts belonging to Marvel Entertainment and Walt Disney Productions. No claim of ownership is made or implied by us in using their property. We're just making their lives… interesting for our own entertainment and hopefully yours. _

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"Knock it off, you two!"

Kitty glared from Lockheed to Pete as she tried to wrangle her dragon away from the brawl they were threatening to start. Ali, John the Skrull, and Tink were doing their part to restrain Pete.

"If you get us kicked out of this pub one more time," Illyana said from her spot next to Kitty, "they might not let us come back."

"He's got it coming!" Pete snarled, making one final attempt to lunge forward before the three holding him back managed to wrestle him to his seat. "Motherless, traitorous rat."

Kitty gave him a stern look. "The only one who's entitled to be upset about that is me, and I've forgiven him, got it?" She set Lockheed on her shoulder and the little dragon immediately snuggled around her neck and gave Pete a nakedly smug look. "You need to chill out," Kitty said to Pete.

Bobby perked up. "I can help with that."

Pete ignored Bobby. "Oh, sure, this time. What about when he leads you down the garden path again, yeah?"

"He wouldn't do that."

"'Course he would. They're all alike."

Illyana smirked at Pete. "And you would know that how? Lockheed's the only dragon you've ever met."

Pete shook his head, almost reluctantly. "Not the only one."

"He's right," John said. "There was that one in Wales."

"Before that," Pete said. "I used to have one."

Kitty blinked. "What?"

"A dragon. I used to have one of me own. When I was an orphan."

Everyone's eyebrows practically shot to the ceiling. "Oh, come on," Illyana said. "You? An orphan?"

"It's true."

Kitty gave him a pointed look. "I've met your family, Pete. Remember?"

"He's pissed," Tink said, settling back into her seat next to him.

"Is he ever not?" Bobby said.

Pete dismissed their comments with a wave. "This was before that," he told everyone. "Before I found out they survived the accident."

"Okay, I have got to hear this," Ali said, and the others at the table nodded their agreement.

Pete lifted his drink and took a long swig. "I've never told anyone this before," he said, swirling the whiskey in his glass, face lost in memory.

* * *

The town of Passamaquoddy was in a festive mood, and all because of Pete's Dragon. Fish had returned to the ocean, more abundant than ever. Doc Terminus had fled for another town, taking his bogus miracles with him, and the Gogans' only claim to Pete was now nothing but a pile of ashes near the town's boathouse. Best of all, Nora had been reunited with her fiancé, Paul. Everyone was happy.

Except for Pete. Because of his dragon.

The boy huddled in the darkness of the cave near Nora and Lampie's lighthouse, hugging himself against the cold, his only company the sound of the waves playing their frothy music against the shore. Everything had been wonderful until the mayor, after thanking Elliot the dragon for all he'd done, announced that Pete's family had been found. They were still alive after all, and were flying in to pick him up. A miracle, everyone had called it, just like Paul's return, but Pete wasn't sure he felt the same way.

The tide was coming in, and Pete still remembered Nora's warning. It would be too dangerous to stay in the cave much longer, but he just needed a little time alone. That was all. A little time to sort things out before his family arrived and took him away.

Pete knew Elliot was coming even before he poked his head into the cave. He'd always been able to sense where his dragon was, whether he was invisible or not. "Aw, not now, Elliot," he said, curling his legs up closer and burying his head in his knees. He didn't want the first friend he ever remembered having to see him like this. The dragon hesitated for a moment, turning his great, camel-like face left and right as if he might find the answer to what he should do inscribed on the cave walls. The cave walls simply looked back at him blankly, as walls so often do.

Elliot lumbered into the cave, forepaws raised, waddling his green, scaly girth around like a pink-haired Godzilla stomping his way through an unsuspecting scale-model Tokyo. When he reached Pete he made a concerned noise and draped the leafy fringe at the tip of his tail over Pete's shoulder in a distinctly human gesture of comfort. Pete sullenly reached up and brushed them away.

"We're supposed to live with Nora and Lampie now, Elliot," Pete said, sliding his head up so he could prop his chin against his knees. "They asked me to. That's what was supposed to happen. They're supposed to be our new family." Just like Passamaquoddy was supposed to be their home now, and it was all being taken away. A small tear squeezed out of one of his eyes before he could stop it.

Elliot reached out, gently collected the tear with one thick digit and looked at the drop incredulously. He murmured a question at Pete, the words coming out as throaty grunts, growl-purrs and clicks of his tongue, like an eight-hundred pound cat trying to talk with its mouth full. Nonsense noises, but Pete understood them just fine.

Pete heaved a sigh and tilted his head back so he could look up at his dragon. "I'm sorry, Elliot. I guess I should be glad you found my real family," he said, brushing a few stray hairs out of his eyes. "But I hardly remember them anymore, and they're going to take me far away from here," he added helplessly. "All my friends; I'll never see them again."

Elliot frowned sympathetically, his floppy ears hanging limp while he nervously tapped the fingers of his forepaws together. More rumbles came from him as he answered Pete.

"You're right, I guess," Pete conceded reluctantly. "At least I'll have you, though, right?"

Elliot suddenly looked uncomfortable. He shifted from one hind foot to the other and fussed with his tail, avoiding Pete's gaze.

"What is it, Elliot?"

The dragon continued to pad at his tail, lowering his eyes as he finally gave a quiet answer.

Pete gasped. His eyes grew wide and he unfolded his legs, quickly standing up so he could look at Elliot better. "You're leaving?" he choked out in disbelief. "But… why?" Swallowing hard, Pete tentatively pointed at himself. "Did I do something wrong?"

Elliot quickly shook his head and waved his forepaws in response to Pete's worry, little pink wings flapping for emphasis. He murmured out a quick explanation bending his sinewy neck down so he could look Pete in the eyes and he could see how serious he was.

"There's another kid that needs you?"

Elliot responded with solemn nod, growling out his description of the situation for added emphasis.

Pete lowered his eyes and thought about it for a moment, chewing at his bottom lip. It sounded like the other kid was in an awful lot of trouble, but… "But I still need you," Pete said. "I need you more than ever now! What if they're awful? What if they're like the Gogans? Who's going to help me then?"

The dragon's head drooped nearly to the cave floor as he sighed and mumbled an anemic apology. There was no changing his mind.

Pete tried to fight it, but the first, faint sniffle of many escaped from him as he glared up at Elliot. "Well, go then, if you have to," he said, more than a little bitterly. Pete lowered his head, refusing to look at him anymore. Not if he was going to just abandon him. When Elliot didn't respond, Pete kicked at the ground as if to boot him out with his size-four sneakers. "Go on, beat it! I never want to see you again!"

Elliot turned his back and slumped his way toward the cave mouth. He gave a little sniffle himself, and a few teardrops fell from his great dragon face to the smooth stone at his feet. Sighing with defeat, he beat his wings until he rose heavily into the air, and then in a blink of magical light, vanished.

Pete stood in the same spot as if rooted there, tears blurring his vision. After a few moments his whole body sagged, the anger draining out of him and regret quickly seeped in to fill the void. "Elliot wait," he whispered. Then, speaking louder, he said, "Wait, Elliot! Come back! I didn't mean it!" Desperately he ran out of the cave, searching the sky for any sign of his friend. "Elliot, please! Come back!"

Elliot was gone.

"Please," Pete finished weakly, watching the empty sky.

He stayed like that until he felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning around, he saw Nora standing there, watching him with a concerned expression. "You shouldn't be down here," she told him, gazing out at the rising tide. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up. Your family will be here soon."

Nodding slowly, Pete rubbed at his eyes and followed Nora back up to the lighthouse. He kept his eyes downcast and gave only the briefest of responses whenever he was spoken too. Nora and Lampie exchanged a number of worried looks as they got him ready for his trip back in town, but there seemed to be nothing they could do to console him.

An hour later they all climbed into Lampie's beat-up old station wagon and drove into Passamaquoddy. Pete sat in silence, looking out the window as he looked for the last time at a place he'd thought would be his home forever. He wanted to remember as much of it as possible. The storybook homes with their white picket fences. Lampie's favorite pub, where he liked to drink himself into a stupor and then stagger home, smelling of beer and whiskey. The little church where Nora and Paul were going to be married in. They all hurt to see, but Pete let his eyes linger over them anyway. The schoolhouse was the hardest. It still bore the dragon-shaped holes in the walls where Elliot had smashed through to rescue him from Miss Taylor's punishments.

All too soon Pete was escorted into the Town Hall. He was wearing the suit Nora had given him for school, the suit he'd been so proud of on that first day. Pete swore to himself that he'd keep it for as long as he could, maybe forever, to help remind him of the kindness of the family he'd almost had.

Waiting for them were the Mayor and a strange man Pete had never seen before.

He was a sloppily dressed rail of a man, with a crooked chin and what seemed like a perpetual sneer. A scraggly beard chased up his jawline toward a spray of graying hair that looked like it had fused to the back of his head after being fired out of a shotgun. When he looked down at Pete there was something about his steely, measuring gaze that filled the boy with a vague, instinctive dread. Could this really be his father?

Pete looked a question to Nora, who tried to give him an encouraging smile, but it looked strained to him. She sensed it, too, Pete was sure, but said nothing. Already he decided he did not want this man to take him away from her and Lampie.

This was all that dragon's fault, Pete reminded himself. He didn't even want to think of him by his name anymore.

The Mayor clapped his hands and rubbed them together as if he, personally, was responsible for the reunion taking place before him. "And here he is at last," he said with satisfaction around the cigar in his mouth. "Pete, my boy. I'd like you to meet your father."

Despite his words, there was something odd and awkward about the way the Mayor was acting. Pete noticed that no matter where in the office the Mayor went, he kept his desk between himself and his father, and his eyes would often flick toward the man as if he were a live bear instead of another person.

Pete took a wary step toward his father. "H-hello, dad," he said. The word felt strange in his mouth. His father arched one beetling brow in response and gave a noncommittal grunt, as if he were still making up his mind about him.

Nora placed her hands on Pete's shoulders, still trying to put on an encouraging front, it seemed. In her most polite voice she said, "It was good of you to come all the way from England on such short notice, Mister…?"

"Wisdom," the man supplied gruffly. "Harold Wisdom."

* * *

A thick silence hung over the table like mist. Everyone traded dubious and confused glances, as if daring each other to be the first to respond to Pete's story.

Pete examined Lockheed through the lens of his whiskey glass, the fluid curves contorting the purple dragon into a beast from the imaginings of Salvador Dali. "I'll bet the two o' you even came from the same planet," he said around a heavy-lidded glare. "Rats. Buncha flying, sodding rats."

Lockheed snorted his disdain.

"Wait a minute," Bobby said, "I've heard this story before. It's 'Pete's Dragon. '"

Tink's brows furrowed in confusion as she looked at Bobby and gestured toward the inebriated spy. "Yeah: Pete's dragon. What's so strange about that?"

Bobby shook his head vigorously. "No, no, I'm talking about a Disney movie. From the Seventies, I think."

Tink made an unladylike sound peppered with a multitude of swear words.

"Hated that film," Pete mumbled into his glass. "Got the ending all wrong."

Ali snickered into the back of her hand. "Were you even born when that movie came out?"

"Wow," Kitty said, "it's not often Pete's accused of being too _young_ for something."

Illyana was nearly in tears from the effort of holding in her laughter. "So basically," she said, "if the Wisdoms hadn't found you you'd have grown up in a lighthouse in Maine?"

"The hot knives would've still come in handy, at least," John said.

Kitty smirked at Illyana. "You know, the Professor probably would have found him after his powers manifested."

"Mr. Sinister, more likely," Illyana said.

Kitty rolled her eyes and swatted at her friend as if she were a buzzing gnat. "Pete, you could've been one of the original X-Men."

Pete made a face as if his whiskey had just turned to distilled water.

"And Bobby's teammate," Ali said, elbowing Pete.

Bobby groaned and shook his head. "No he wouldn't have," he said. "Because none of it happened. That's what I've been trying to say." He shifted his gaze back to Pete. "You made the whole thing up, didn't you?"

For a long moment the two stared across the table at each other, Pete's expression an unreadable wall to Bobby's piercing demand. Neither looked willing to back down.

A mild chuckle proclaimed Pete the first to crack. "Had you going, there."

Ali gave Pete an affectionate pat on the arm. "Cute story, though."

Tink knocked back the rest of her Vodka and Red Bull. "Like anyone would have believed you have anything in common with a _Disney_ movie."

"This from someone with the same name as a character from 'Peter Pan,'" Illyana said. Soon after she'd moved to England to work as Pete's secretary she and his fairy wife had formed a quick friendship.

"One more drink." Pete reached for his glass but Illyana intercepted it before his fingers were halfway there.

"There isn't enough coffee in the world to nurse you through the hangover you've got coming," Illyana said. "I'm not about to let you make it worse."

Pete tried to glare at her. "I'm your boss, you know. That's insubordination."

"You betcha, it is."

Tink snaked her arm inside Pete's and said, "What's he like with a hangover, anyway?"

Kitty, Ali and Illyana all opened their mouths to answer, but before they could say anything, Pete cut them off with a sharp look and said, "That's classified. And I make up for it with colorful commentary."

"Sounds like fun I don't want to miss out on." Tink flashed Pete a toothy grin and nudged him to his feet. "I'll make sure he gets to work sober and clear-headed, yah."

"I'll help you get him home," Illyana said.

"No, you won't."

"Too late." A stepping disc enveloped the trio, muting any further protests coming from Pete. An instant later they were gone.

John got up from his seat and stretched. "That'd be my cue to be off, like," he said, adjusting his signature round glasses. He took Ali's hand and bent down to give the back of it a quick kiss, repeating the courtly gesture next with Kitty. "Ladies," he said.

"I'll get us a cab," Bobby said after John left. He wandered off to the back, leaving Kitty and Ali alone at the table, save for Lockheed, who had decided to take a nap atop Kitty's shoulders.

Kitty reached up and idly scratched one of Lockheed's tapered horns. "You took that well," she said to Ali.

Ali slowly arched one eyebrow. "Took what well?"

"Watching Tink run off with Pete like that."

Ali shrugged and gave Kitty a wistful smile. "Well, she is his wife. There's not much a girl can say when she chooses to exercise that prerogative, is there?" She leaned across the table slightly and her smile became a cheeky grin. "Say, when you were dating Pete, did you ever peek in his closet?"

"Only if I was in the mood for a good scare."

"Did you notice he's got a suit stashed away in there that's smaller than the others?"

"About the right size for a ten-year-old schoolboy?"

"You don't suppose…"

The two women paused to consider it for a moment, and then in unison said, "Nahhhh."


End file.
